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Ses Sa Glbl Fid Dep Shs
2/25/2022
Hello and welcome to the SDS Full-Scare 2021 Results Call. My name is Judy and I'll be the coordinator for today's event. Please note that today's call will be recorded and for the duration of the call, your lines will be lifted only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad at any time. If you require technical assistance at any point, and you'll be connected to an operator. I would now like to hand you over to your host, Richard Whiteman, Head of Investor Relations, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. And again, thanks for joining this analyst and investor call for our full year 2021 financial results. This morning's presentation was uploaded along with the press release to the investors section at ses.com if you don't already have it. And as always from me, please note the disclaimer at the back of the presentation. In a moment, Steve Collis, CEO, will present the main business highlights, followed by Sandeep Jalan, CFO, to cover the financials in more detail. After some closing remarks from Steve, we will take your questions. So with that, let me hand over to Steve.
Very good. Thank you, Richard. And good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us this morning. And I'm going to start on page three with an overview of a very strong and satisfying year of performance and execution for SES. In 2021, we delivered annual revenue in line with our objectives and EBITDA at the top end of our financial outlook. Completed phase one C-band clearing ahead of the FCC deadline and received $977 million in accelerated relocation payments. We grew net profit by 70% and closed out the year with our leverage at its lowest level for six years. During the course of the year, we returned €275 million to shareholders through a combination of dividend and share buyback, while the Board is proposing to increase the dividend this year by 25%, reflecting our long-term growth fundamentals and strong cash generation. We made excellent progress during 2021 on our strategic value-creating initiatives, with the successful launch of SES17 being the first important step in the delivery of our future network, with O3B Empower also on schedule to launch in 2022. We've now secured almost $1 billion in gross backlog for the combination of SES17 and O3B Empower, a 60% increase from a year ago. The traction that we're seeing in the market for SES17 and O2BM Power underscores how differentiated these assets are, with SES the only company that can offer multi-orbit, flexible, cloud-enabled, carrier-grade service on a global basis, attracting some of the world's largest and most important businesses to our network. This will, in turn, drive revenue and EBITDA growth from 2023 onwards. And finally, 2021 was a very significant year in that we secured the first billion dollars in C-band accelerated relocation payments and now we're laser focused on phase two. We're fully on track with a busy year of satellite launches in 2022 and a full clearing schedule laid out triggering an additional incentive of three billion dollars in late 2023. So now turning to the numbers on page four, group revenue of 1.78 billion euros was well within our outlook, and this despite the ongoing COVID-related headwinds throughout the year. Pleasingly, our video business continued to perform throughout the year with a much improved revenue trajectory on the back of important renewals, a growing number of high-definition channels, and the expansion of HD Plus in Germany. Our network's business performed well against the backdrop of an extended COVID environment, with a recovery in mobility contributing to positive year-on-year growth in the second half, momentum that we expect to accelerate through 2022. Below the revenue line, the €1.09 billion of adjusted EBITDA represents a performance at the top end of our guidance range and benefited from a 2% year-on-year OPEX reduction, while laser focus on all of our cost lines contributed to a net profit increase of almost 70% to €323 million. Lastly, our ability to drive substantial cash through the business, along with the cash received from CBAN payments, serve to strengthen our balance sheet with leverage now below three times. So now looking at our segments in more detail, starting with video on page five, having increased our outlook with our Q3 results in November, I'm pleased to say that we exceeded that elevated target on the back of a strong finish to the year. We've been discussing for some time the improving revenue trajectory in video, and that's reflected in the 4.6% year-on-year trend versus minus 8% in 2020. Our renewals were particularly strong in 2021, extending our long-term relationships with large strategic clients such as Sky in the UK and Dish Mexico, for whom we are providing both DTH and OTT solutions, as well as key customers like Comcast, NSIL, HSE, and BMT. We have built and continue to develop the industry's largest neighborhoods, and a very strong indication of the attractiveness of broadcast TV over satellite is the continued growth of high definition. We now carry an industry-leading 3,100 HD channels, and that's up 6% year-on-year, while we continue to boast substantial contract backlog of $3.1 billion. The deal signed with Glocast for CGTN was a good example of a customer who's been leveraging our neighborhood at 19.2 East for many years and has now upgraded to high definition, driving higher throughput and higher revenues for SES. So turning to page six, and one of the things I'm most pleased about is the progress that we've been making on our largest video market, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, or DACH, and in particular with our B2C platform, HD+. We now serve more than 2 million paying subscribers and generate almost 130 million euros in annual revenue. We're growing revenue for the first time in a number of years on the back of both increasing subscriber numbers and increasing price. Every second television bought in Germany now comes pre-installed and pre-configured with our extremely popular HD Plus operator environment. And we've consistently improved our product offering in a highly dynamic and competitive market, now delivering a choice of 80 premium and free-to-air channels for a cost of just €6 a month. In 2021, HD Plus went truly hybrid, firstly with the launch of HD Plus To Go, which for the first time allows HD Plus subscribers to view the content on their mobile devices for an additional monthly fee, while towards the end of the year, we launched HD Plus IP, and we now have access to the 19 million non-satellite homes across Germany. I think it speaks volumes to the strength of our product offering and our neighborhood reach that in a new media landscape comprising streaming giants and content platforms, we're growing our subscriber base, adding new customers, increasing revenue, and launching new and innovative products that create value directly at the customer edge. Turning to page seven, the strength of our neighborhoods across Europe at 19.2 East from which we serve 117 million households and generate more than 375 million in annualized revenue just from duck alone underscores the importance of this slot for our customers and the value creation for SES. I'm really happy with the creative solution that we announced late last year for the continuation of services from 19.2 East. we'll be deploying two new state-of-the-art satellites from Thalassa Linear Space to replace the four satellites that we're currently operating in this slot in the 2024-2025 timeframe, achieving a capex efficiency of more than 50% and driving a significant increase in profitability. Not only will this combination of satellites deliver the resilience, reliability, and redundancy that our video customers need and secure continued premium services well beyond 2040, but also allow us to develop new IP-based solutions to complement our existing broadcast services, leveraging the advanced digital payload installed on Astra 1Q. So now switching to networks on page eight, and we've been in a COVID environment for almost 24 months now, and yet, thanks to the ongoing resilience of our customers and our business, our underlying revenue is higher than it was when the pandemic began. Government has been our standout performer in 2021, at nearly 4% year-on-year, on the back of strong demand from the US and other governments, anchored particularly with our unique O3V infrastructure, and this despite the unexpectedly rapid withdrawal of US and other governments from Afghanistan, flattening our growth towards the end of the year. Both fixed data and mobility showed modest contraction in 2021, but each with positive developments in the year. In fixed data, expected lower volumes in the Pacific following the deployment of several cable systems was positively offset with growth from a number of rural inclusion projects, our continued success with Tier 1 operators in the Americas and Asia, and exceptionally strong performance from cloud in the second half of the year. In mobility, despite the frustrating longevity of COVID, the sector is picking up with a return to sailing and cruise and new contract winds and aero driving both sequential and year-on-year growth in the second half of 2021. And this is a good segue to page nine and the strong commercial success over the past 14 months in driving a significant uplift in the combined backlog of SES17 and O2VM Power. We're bringing these programs to the market ahead of our competitors, and with differentiated value propositions, SES17 will be on station in April and start serving customers, including our anchor aviation customer, Thales InFlight, from July. We've established a truly market-leading position in cruise, commanding premium pricing and delivering industry-leading performance. This is underscored by the fact that five leading brands have made important commitments to O3B Empower, four of whom you see here on the chart, and another we expect to be able to talk more about in the fullness of time. Important long-term customers and partners, Orange and Marlink, have also committed early to O3V Empower, while Microsoft, as well as being a gateway partner through their GSAS or Grand Station as a service offering, will also leverage O3V Empower within their own network, contributing to the resilience of the Azure platform. And I'll cover the foundational agreement with Reliance Geo in a moment. And overall, we have grown combined FES17 and O3DN power backlog to more than $900 million, up 60% since the start of 2021. We're investing substantially in network, ground infrastructure and gateways ahead of revenue, as will be covered by Sandeep in our 2022 outlook, but the robustness of both our secured business and our pipeline of opportunities underscore the importance of these assets to drive growth for SES well into the future. So now turning to page 10 in the announcement that we made just a week ago that has very significant implications for our business in India and for the adoption of O2V Empower more broadly. Reliance Jio is India's leading telecommunications provider and has had a dramatically transformative impact on the Indian market, revolutionizing telecom landscape since deploying innovative 4G LTE services and solutions. We've announced a joint venture with Jio Platforms, leveraging and embracing the dramatic changes in the Indian regulatory landscape. Together, we will deliver scalable and affordable broadband services and solutions across the country via O3B Empower and our geostationary assets, in particular, SES-12, starting this year. The initial deal is worth upwards of $100 million to SES, but this is just the beginning as we look to deploy as much as 100 gigabits per second of satellite capability across India. SES and GEO will deploy network infrastructure and gateways across the country and collaborate to develop ground infrastructure, solutions and services to serve the ambition of Prime Minister Modi's Gati Saki master plan and connect millions of Indians. I could not be happier with this partnership with GEO. I believe that it will be transformational for SES and represents a huge opportunity for us to drive scale and growth into the O3VN power network. Okay, and now page 11 is the last slide from me and shows the important progress that we're making on our strategic and value-driving initiatives. You're going to see this slide progressively fill with green ticks as we execute on our plan and have already made huge progress. Executing on CVAN clearing ahead of schedule was a significant achievement late last year, protecting our customers' networks while generating a billion dollars for SES and its shareholders, cash that we have booked and received. We've also successfully launched SES-17, the largest and most capable satellite that we've launched to date, and it'll arrive on station at a time where others are experiencing production delays. SES-17 features more than 200 high-throughput beams over the Americas and huge flexibility to serve the growing need for connectivity and the shifting demand patterns across the region over the course of a day. It will also be the first satellite to use our adaptive resource control technology, ARC, that allows us to move power and bandwidth across the platform intelligently and is an integral building block in our multi-orbit strategy. We've got a great anchor customer in Thales InFlight, a book of secured backlog and a strong pipeline. And looking ahead to the rest of 22, it's an important year of execution with two launches for O3BM Power and our first C-band launch all happening in the second quarter. These launch dates support our objectives of being in service with the OTB Empower Constellation before the end of the year, and we remain on track to achieve that. SES 17 will be on station in April, enter service at the end of Q2, and will become an important driver of growth into the second half of 2022. Q3 is all about CBAN, and having secured Phase 1, we're now focused on delivering Phase 2. Our Phase 2 planning has benefited substantially from the experience gained in Phase 1, and we remain more than on track to secure the additional $3 billion in accelerated relocation payments ahead of the FCC deadline at the end of 2023. We also continue to make progress with further opportunities for accelerated clearing and monetization, and I expect to have more to say on this topic in the next few weeks. And then in Q4, the focus is back to O3B Empower and bringing what is a game-changing constellation and capability to market. No other system can offer the throughput, flexibility, and performance that O3B Empower can, and we're building on the legacy of the only successful broadband NGSO constellation ever deployed in O3B. So with that, I'll hand over to Sandeep.
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